1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for inputting numeric values on an information processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, computer devices having touch panels have become widespread. On such computer devices, there are cases in which a user inputs numeric values using a touch panel. As methods of inputting numeric values, there is a method in which a soft keyboard screen is displayed on the touch panel and the user inputs by touching this keyboard, and there is also a method in which input is performed via an input apparatus such as a USB keyboard. Also, as another such method, a method is known in which a numeral having multiple digit positions is displayed on the touch panel, and the user inputs a desired numeric value by performing an operation for doing a move (also known as drag, flick or swipe) in an upward/downward orientation on the digit positions of this numeral (see FIG. 11). In FIG. 11, by dragging a numeral “2” in a center of a numeral “123” in a downward direction, it is changed to a “1” and the numeric value “113” is acquired. For this numeric value input method of using a drag operation in an upward/downward orientation, on top of the fact that it is not necessary to display a keyboard on the touch panel as in the soft keyboard method, there is also no need for an externally connected input apparatus such as a USB keyboard. Also, because the numeric value increases/decreases in accordance with the drag operation in an upward/downward orientation, the operation is intuitive for the user.
As yet another method, a method is known in which a position at which to input a numeral is specified with a pointer, and the numeric value to be input at the position increases/decreases with a movement direction of the pointer from that position (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 08-249125).
As described above, in a case where a numeric value is input by the method of increasing/decreasing the numeric value of the digit position by the drag operation in an upward/downward orientation or in the movement direction of a pointer, it can be thought that the user will more often input from the most significant digit position (highest order) of the numeral. However, in a case where a numeric value having many digit positions is input, with the above described conventional techniques, there is the problem that it is difficult to know into which displayed digit position to input the numeral of the most significant digit position of the numeric value to be input. Also, there is the problem that in a case where the most significant digit position of the numeric value to be input is off by 1 digit position, there is the necessity to change the numeral of each digit position, which is very cumbersome. For example, consider a case where when 10 digit position input boxes are displayed, and the numeric value “1234567890” is to be input into them, input is started mistakenly from the second box from the most significant box (in other words, from a hundred millions digit position). In this case, the user may not notice that there is no box into which to input the numeral “0” until he or she has already input the numeric value “123456789”. In such a case, because all of the numerals of the digit positions (boxes) input until that point have to be changed, there is the problem that it is difficult for the user to use.